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Step 2 of 5

Step 2 — Working out whether your computer can run it

A requirements table is six lines of numbers, and every one of them has a matching number on your own computer that you can read in a couple of minutes. This step teaches the comparison, so that you can do it for any game rather than for one.

What a requirements table is saying

Every vendor of a PC game publishes a short table of system requirements. The wording varies, the structure almost never does. Six rows carry nearly all the meaning.

Each row is a claim by the vendor about its own product, which is why you read it on the vendor's site rather than on a page like this one. A general course can teach you to read the table; only the vendor can tell you what is in it today.

Minimum against recommended

Most tables have two columns. The minimum column describes a machine on which the game will start and run in some fashion, usually with the picture quality turned down. The recommended column describes a machine on which it runs the way the vendor intends.

The useful way to read the two columns is as a prediction about your experience rather than a pass mark. Meeting the minimum means the game should launch; it does not promise that it will be pleasant. Meeting the recommended column means you will probably not think about performance at all. Sitting between the two is common and usually fine, and the practical effect is that you will spend some time in the game's settings turning options down.

Falling below the minimum on one row is not automatically fatal, except for the operating system row, where it is. Falling below on several rows at once usually is.

Finding the same numbers on your computer

This procedure takes about five minutes and uses only what is already installed. Nothing needs to be downloaded to do it, and you should be suspicious of any site that tells you otherwise: a page that offers to scan your computer for compatibility is asking you to run its program, which is a much larger request than reading six numbers yourself.

1. Write down the requirements first. Copy the vendor's two columns onto paper or into a note. Doing this before you look at your own machine stops you from quietly adjusting the target.
2. Find your operating system and version. On Windows, open Settings, then System, then About. On a Mac, open the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. Write down both the name and the version number.
3. Find your processor and memory. The same screen lists the processor model and the installed memory. Memory is the figure in gigabytes, often shown as installed RAM.
4. Find your graphics hardware. On Windows, open Task Manager with Ctrl, Shift and Escape, choose the Performance tab, and look at the GPU entry. On a Mac, hold the Option key while opening the Apple menu and choose System Information, where the graphics entry is listed.
5. Check free disk space. Open File Explorer or Finder and read the free space on the drive where the game would be installed. Note it in gigabytes.
6. Compare row by row. Put your six numbers beside the vendor's two columns and mark each row as above recommended, between the columns, or below minimum.

The operating system comes first

Of the six rows, the operating system row is the one that cannot be negotiated. A client is compiled for a particular family of systems. If the vendor lists Windows and Mac, a Linux computer is not covered, and no amount of spare memory changes that. If the vendor lists a minimum version of Windows, an older version is not covered either.

This is also where the one product named in this course has a published limit worth repeating. The affiliate network states that World of Warships runs an affiliate program paying commission on a single opt-in, a download, and the creation and activation of an account, and that it is offered for desktop computers running Windows or Mac. Linux is not included. If your household computer runs Linux, that is a complete answer, and you can stop before the other five rows.

Keeping the operating system itself up to date is sensible for reasons that have nothing to do with games; the Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes general advice on updates for home users, and it applies whether or not you install anything new.

Storage, and the margin people forget

The storage row understates what you will need, for two reasons that are both predictable. First, the installer usually needs working space while it unpacks, so the peak requirement during installation is higher than the finished size. Second, an actively maintained online game grows: patches add content more often than they remove it, and a client that installs at forty gigabytes may be noticeably larger a year later.

A reasonable habit is to require the published storage figure plus about half again as free space before you begin, and to treat a drive that is more than ninety per cent full as a problem to solve first. Computers behave poorly when their main drive is nearly full, for reasons unrelated to any game.

If the figure does not fit, the honest options are to free space, to install to a second drive if the client allows choosing one, or to decide not to install. Deleting things at random to clear ten gigabytes an hour before you want to play is how people lose documents.

The internet connection

An online game needs a connection while you play, and a much larger amount of data once, when you install, and periodically afterwards when it updates. Two separate properties of your connection matter, and they are easy to confuse.

Speed decides how long the install takes. A monthly data allowance decides whether you can afford it at all. A forty-gigabyte install on a plan with a one-hundred-gigabyte monthly allowance has used nearly half the month's data before anyone has played anything, and the patches that follow come out of the same allowance. If the connection is shared, mobile, or metered, work this out before installing rather than after.

Latency — the delay between your computer and the game's servers — affects how an online game feels but is not something a requirements table can predict for your address. It is reasonable to expect it to be worse for servers on the other side of the world than for ones nearby.

Judging the gaps honestly

There is no obligation to resolve a gap by buying hardware. A course that pushed you towards an upgrade would be selling components rather than teaching reading. Waiting is a legitimate outcome of this step, and so is deciding that a different game, or none, fits the machine you own.

A worked example

The invented household from the homepage has one five-year-old Windows laptop. Working through the procedure, they find the version of Windows is current, the memory sits between the minimum and recommended columns, the graphics chip is built into the processor and falls just under the minimum, and the drive has eleven gigabytes free against a published requirement of several times that. The data allowance would be two-thirds spent by the install.

The storage row and the data row are the binding ones, so those are what they deal with: clearing space deliberately over a weekend, and scheduling the install for the start of a billing month. The graphics row they accept, expecting to reduce the picture quality. Again, this household is a hypothetical used to show the order of decisions, not a report about anybody.

Before you move on

You should now have six numbers for your own computer written down somewhere, and a row-by-row verdict against any requirements table you care to open. Keep that note: Step 5 uses the storage figure again when it deals with patches. Step 3 turns from the machine to the content, and to money.